Although split on whether the stories in question actually undermine our understanding of climate science, media commentators all agreed that the recent spate of global warming ‘scandals’ has been a serious setback for advocates of ‘decarbonisation’ policies.
Commenting on the recent surge in negative stories about the certainty (or lack of) of our knowledge of climate change science, veteran environmental activist Jonathon Porritt wrote on his website on 5 February that: “Where they were once thought as contrarian outliers, both The Daily Mail and The Daily Express are now thought to be closely aligned with public opinion. Ed Miliband (the Secretary of State in the Department of Energy and Climate Change) must be in despair.”
“So should we be pressing the panic button?” he asked. “I think we should. The damage done to the credibility not just of climate science but also of the UK’s entire approach to climate change is already serious – and getting worse. This could be extremely problematic in the run up to the General Election.” Porritt’s suggested solution to restore public faith in the reality of climate change was to suggest that the Royal Society be asked to convene “a high-level Scientific Panel to comment on ‘the state of the science’”. “Overkill?” he asked himself. “Possibly. It seems ludicrous that what is still by any standards a rock-solid scientific consensus should have to be shored up by such extreme measures. But if we don’t, might we be looking at an Aussie-style meltdown in public opinion in the near term?”
Hearts and minds
The Guardian, which belatedly followed up the ‘Climategate’ episode in considerable detail in early February, editorialised on the subject on 6 February. “What Copenhagen did for the chances of a meaningful climate deal, East Anglia has unwittingly done for the prospects of prevailing in the battle of hearts and minds,” the paper said. “Before rushing to judgement on the hapless scientists involved, though, it is as well to recall the peculiar pressures that climate researchers face. The climate clock is ticking on civilisation and it falls to them to answer the all-important question about just how much time there is left to act.”
One stratagem employed on a regular basis in recent weeks by The Daily Express, meanwhile, is to accuse any public body that believes there is a strong scientific consensus on the reality of man-made climate change of bias. “The Met Office was last night accused of being too heavily biased in support of arguments suggesting global warming is made-made,” it said on 6 February. “Critics said the taxpayer-funded body had no right to enter such a politically charged arena in the wake of an on-going row embroiling climate change scientists at the University of East Anglia.”
The following day the paper suggested in its front page lead story that the BBC was also biased in its reporting of climate science stories. “Striking parallels between the BBC’s coverage of the global warming debate and the activities of its pension fund can be revealed today,” The Express said. “The Corporation is under investigation after being inundated with complaints that its editorial coverage of climate change is biased in favour of those who say it is a man-made phenomenon.” The paper’s reference to the BBC’s pension fund was then revealed to mean that the Corporation is a member of a group called the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change, a body that also includes BT, the Corporation of London and the Church Commissioners for England.
“What a difference three months makes,” wrote The Guardian’s deputy editor, Ian Katz, on 8 February. “Back in November the world broadly agreed that emissions of carbon dioxide were heating up the planet and that we needed to do something about it, even if we couldn’t agree exactly what… Now, with climate science under siege and climate politics in disarray, that sounds like the rhetoric of another age.”
“The case for action must be remade from the ground up,” Katz went on. “It’s no good politicians and scientists going on TV and insisting that the overwhelming body of climate science has not been touched by the scandals... Those who want action on climate change will meanwhile have to accept a more incremental approach.”
On 6 February The Daily Mail picked up on an opinion poll conducted for the BBC that indicated that the public’s belief in the science of climate change has been significantly eroded by recent media coverage. “How our belief in climate change is draining away” was the paper’s headline to a story that said, “The rapid change in public opinion [the percentage of those surveyed who thought that climate change was a reality had fallen from 83% last November to 75%] has been fuelled by the failure of the Copenhagen Climate Summit in December, the bitterly cold winter and the row over leaked emails from the University of East Anglia, which showed scientists attempting to hide data from sceptics.” Commenting on The Daily Mail’s story on the BBC opinion poll, The Independent suggested, however, that: “It might be thought that the striking thing about the poll finding is that the public continues to accept the threat of climate change by such an overwhelming margin.”
Much ado about nothing?
The Guardian’s curious stance on the various ‘Climategate’ stories, that of maintaining its editorial position that the science of man-made climate change is as robust as ever whilst simultaneously reporting on the stories in question in extensive detail, came in for strong criticism from a number of sources. Environmental activist and journalist Mark Lynas, for example, writing in The New Statesman, said, “Now, after some initial reluctance, even the liberal media establishment is falling over itself to get in on the act, presumably to demonstrate its great rigour and impartiality – all paranoid conspiracists will be duly taken seriously, all climate deniers given their deserved moment in the sun. Witness The Guardian trumpeting its great ‘investigation’ over three successive double-page spreads, though accompanied in one case by a curious comment piece, authored by one of the principal investigators (New Scientist’s Fred Pearce), correctly pointing out that the hullabaloo is a non-story and changes nothing that we know about the reality of anthropogenic global warming.”
“Then, one has to ask, why add fuel to the fire?” Lynas asked. “I think this is a shameful episode... Climategate may seem important now, but it is all sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
By far the most vehement analysis of the Climategate stories came from Daily Express columnist Leo McKinstry. “The belief in man-made global warming now looks… weak,” McKinstry said. “A string of scandals has revealed the extent to which environmentalists have been willing to manipulate climate data for political ends. With breathtaking cynicism activists have used massaged figures to manufacture a public mood of panic over the future of the planet, thereby justifying their radical socialistic programme of huge tax grabs, state intervention, mass surveillance and the removal of property rights. Yet as the devious methods of the green ideologues come under increasing scrutiny so the evidence for man-made global warming evaporates.”
In The Independent on 14 February, former Chancellor Nigel Lawson, who now chairs the Global Warming Policy Foundation, was provided with a column to rebut what he said were inaccurate comments about his climate change think-tank in the paper. “In the UK at any rate, the really big money is overwhelmingly financing organisations on the other side of the debate,” Lawson began, taking issue with the oft-repeated claim that the climate denial ‘industry’ exists largely due to funding from the oil companies. “The two principal sources are the UK Government, anxious to foster support for an increasingly unpopular decarbonisation policy, and the banking sector, where carbon trading is now a multibillion-pound business, which would disappear altogether if decarbonisation policies were to be abandoned.”
“What badly needs to be discussed and debated, far more than it has been hitherto in the mainstream media, is the strength or weakness of that case [for man-made warming], rather than who is providing what finance,” Lawson added. “It is, admittedly, a highly complex issue, involving science, technology, economics, politics and ethics. And there are a series of questions that have to be addressed. If man-made warming is occurring or is likely to occur, how much warming will there be, how long is it likely to take, and what other climatic factors are likely to complicate the picture? If it does occur, how do we weigh up the costs and benefits, given that modern technology should enable us greatly to diminish many of the costs?” “The simplistic assumption that, if man-made warming occurs, present policies must be right and must not be challenged and, if they are challenged, it is only by wicked oil companies, will not do,” Lawson concluded. “There is far too much at stake.”
